Ok, now that Zelda is out of my GBA backlog, I am very interested in trying to track this one down. (It seems to have become quite scarce since the FF1-2 GBA game came out.) Anyway, I know I have read several people around here talk about how it's their favorite, most addictive GBA game. Could some of you fans please explain why it's so great to me? My guess is it's a Japanese styled turn based RPG. What makes it so special and so much better than the others? (I'm not disputing the claim, I am genuinely interested in what makes it so great!) Thanks!

it was either my first or second gameboy title, & i'd never played the original (which i quickly did right after - enjoyed it as well, but not as much)...

ffta has a nice childlike, dreamy (& effortlessly self-referential) vibe, story/graphic/music -wise, that is amazingly consistent from beginning to end. so, that's one thing. another thing is the gameplay itself: very intuitive, very customizable (5 races, lots of job combos), challenging but not over-powering, with a close to perfect difficulty curve. & then there's the missions - 300 of'm, most obviously side-quests, all unique - & the rival clan thing, & the judgement system, & the totemas - just typing about it now makes me smile ...

it all just works together so damn well - it's as close to my idea of a flawless game as any i've ever played. it never bored me & always delighted me. it's a work of strategy game art...

& it's also a look-in at the creative team & world (ivalice) of the upcoming ff12, so that's a nice little bonus reason to check it out...

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"... i'm not against some 'monkey catching'... but i'd rather be collecting pants..."- snake, 'snake vs monkey' (mgs3:se)

Great game. Ive put around 70+ hours into mine. It can get easy later on i the game, but it seems to be about the right difficulty for me. I have really enjoyed this game.

What makes it great to me is the classes, and just trying to make my clan powerful as a unit. That gets tricky because I am trying to have one of each class (well, and some witha class as their secondary).

The story is interesting, but not thrilling. What keeps me there is just advancing my characters. The only thing I dont like is that it gets very difficult to buy new items later on. You just have to wait until you stumble across them, that I dont like.

Overall, a great game for the gba. Fun little title that you can pick up and play for a second, or play for hours (it has a sleep function during battles, which is nice so you can play for short periods of time as well.)

So like.... To be honest, I got the emulator for the PC to test it out before I got it for the GBA... I like the GBA version, since well, I enjoy thinking/strategy games, IE Disgaia, Geomancer, etc.

But it's so Durn slow to play after you have played the emulator where you can ramp up the gamespeed by over 300%, making even the most complex spells/skills take no time at all...

That being said, I've spent countless hours on both versions... it's a great little game. It'll never win game of the year awards, but every now and then you just want to spend a few hours and just enjoy something, this game is great. Road trips, plane trips, no psp... then this one is a surefire winner for such occasions. If it only fufilled my RPG quotient, this game would have damn near everything I needed in a GBA game...

Anyone played both FFTA and Tactics Ogre for the GBA? Which did you like better? I understand that Tactics Ogre factors in things like terrain height and the direction you attack from (eg. from behind); does FFTA?

Anyone played both FFTA and Tactics Ogre for the GBA? Which did you like better? I understand that Tactics Ogre factors in things like terrain height and the direction you attack from (eg. from behind); does FFTA?

I found Tactics Ogre to be much, much better. I liked only having humans for the characters so any character could (with by meeting the right conditions) become any class.

With FFTA you are forced to have members of each race because they become specific classes. However most of the classes do suck and often I only stayed in a class to get one specific skill then reverted back to the best class.

I will say that the story in TO was harder to understand but the combat was much more rewarding.

The judgements really ruined it for me with FFTA. They were only binding on the player, they were easily avoided by simply waiting a few days to go to a location, and they ultimately meant nothing.

All in all I felt TO had much more depth and better combat, but a weaker story.

FFTA was by far my favorite game for the GBA. I probably dumped close to 90 hours into it before I put it away. The story is pretty weak, but I found the gameplay and individual character development to be fantastic. My only complaint about it was the stupid law system. Toward the end of the game, the laws start getting very restrictive and you are usually dealing with more than one at a time. That got really annoying.

I wasn't too crazy about TO. Honestly, I don't think I gave it much of a chance (about 6 hours worth), but it didn't grab me at all. I found the more individualized combat of FFTA to be much more enjoyable.

Didn't really care for it, to be honest. I felt like to really advance in the game, I had to spend a full-on 75% of the time staring at inventory screens and swapping weapons around (your characters get new abilities from using different weapons). Plus, I felt it got bogged down with too many random encounter-type deals you had to worry about. The battles are fun, but I'd definitely recommend Tactics Ogre above this one.

1. getting abilities from weapons. It was teadious because each time you got a new weapon you needed to check for what abilities each job could learn then switch to that job, learn ability, switch back to other job etc. So rather than worrying about your job you had to always track the equipment as well. That was a lot of micro managment for little reward.

2. The rediculous amount of points needed for some skills. I know they were powerful skills but come on! Basically it required playing a lot of extra battles just to pick up a skill.

Wow, hard to believe so many of you have negative views of this game. I think it is fantastic. Easily the best RPG/strategy game for the GBA. I have over 80 hours into the game and I'm still playing. I do not like difficult games and this one is perfectly balanced, imo. I have used no walkthroughs or strat guides. I have learned everything on my own, which I think is more fun in this game's case. It is cool when you finally find out how to get your characters to new uber classes. I love all the items and finding out what they do. That is more fun than the actual story line. The laws add another depth of strategy to the game. A new layer of strategy. That is why it is important to have all the different classes in your party. I have around 20+ members and nobody is the same. You just have to pick the right classes based on the current laws. Easy. Never a problem for me.

I love this game and I can't wait for the new one, hopefully there will be a new one soon!

I found this used at an EB a couple nights ago (my first sighting of this game in ANY store in weeks) and picked it up. So far I have... read the manual. lol. I tried to start it last night, but when they were trying to explain to me how to snowball fight, my eyes were drooping and I had to go to sleep.

I'll post some impressions when I actually get a chance to try it out!

Well, im on the last boss, and Square has done something they do almost every game. I have to beat the last boss about 3 times. 3 fights for the last boss!! What the hell is up with that. I hate that about Square and their games. The game is easy all along, no problems, then you get to the bosses, and they make you fight them three times, and they are hard core. This was the same with FF:CC. It just pisses me off to no end. I hate games that do that. What the hell is up with square?For how much I loved this game to begin with, I now hate it. I hate it I tell you! It is complete crap that I have to find the end boss 3 times in a row. And not only that it made me save right before, and Now I have to beat the boss because I cant even go back into the map. Square, you are a bunch of bastards making great games till then end! Then they suck. Done with my rant now.

Yeah, ive only tried once so far, im sure I can do it again. For some reason the Zelda games dont bug me, but for some reason the two final fantasy gaems drive me crazy. Maybe because it makes you save before you fight them. Grr....

i see what you're saying - zelda does allow you to back out at that point & run around a while longer if you want, even tho, if you've gotten that far, there's not a whole lot you can really do (other than finding more heart pieces) to make the battle itself easier...

good luck...

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"... i'm not against some 'monkey catching'... but i'd rather be collecting pants..."- snake, 'snake vs monkey' (mgs3:se)